The Audio Visual Equipment and Equipment with Installation framework has been extended until 29th February 2016. The framework is to be re-tendered with a contract notice to be published in the OJEU on 1st December 2016.

The above framework expired on 30 November 2015. Having reviewed the low use of the framework over the last four years and having had very few enquiries about this framework the decision has been taken not to re-tender it at this time.

Please see the table below which show the fantastic results achieved in the benchmarking exercises that have been carried out during November.

The public sector has become accustomed in recent years to an impending sense of doom ahead of budget or spending review announcements. Following FE budget cuts in real terms of 14% in the last parliament, Education Secretary Nicky Morgan conceded in September that the FE sector was in a "fragile" state. Amid recent ministerial statements that FE would not be protected from cuts, 125 FE College principles wrote to the Government warning that further cuts would tip them "over the precipice".

The EU Court of Auditors investigated how member states conduct procurements under The European Regional Development Fund, the Cohesion Fund and the European Social Fund (now the European Structural Investment Fund (ESIF)).

CPC are delighted to have recently joined a project with AoC, CCS and a number of colleges who have been working on the development of an agreement for procuring from Awarding Organisations under the new EU regulations.

The level of interest in sit-to-stand workstations is growing with significant media interest in 2015 about the health benefits of being active within the workplace. While over 90% of workstations in Scandinavia are sit-stand, in the UK this is less than 1%. The traditional barriers to buying this type of solution have been around cost and uncertainty about whether UK employees will embrace this new way of working.

Our Security Services – Manned Guarding framework is due for renewal February 2016....

A recent article in Supply Chain Management raised a number of issues schools are having with embracing collaborative purchasing. We'd like to share our experience of how these can be overcome by using a purchasing consortium.

Do you have a passion for helping the Education sector make savings and achieve best value for money? Are you MCIPS qualified with a good knowledge of EU procurement legislation? If so we may have the perfect opportunity for you.